Marshall, High Court Liberal and Its Only Black, to Retire : Judiciary: Justice cites health, advancing age. Bush has the opportunity to put a conservative stamp on the court that could last for decades.

Justice Thurgood Marshall, the only black to serve on the Supreme Court and the last of its classic liberals, announced Thursday that he is retiring, citing his “advancing age and medical condition.”

Marshall will mark his 83rd birthday next week. In a letter to President Bush, he said he could not keep up with the “strenuous demands” of the job.

His departure will leave a void on the high court. Since his appointment in 1967, Marshall has championed the causes of racial justice, free speech and women’s rights, and never relented in his opposition to the death penalty. When he joined the court, he was part of a majority on these issues. But in recent years, his was most often a voice of dissent as the high court moved to the right.

His retirement gives Bush an opportunity to put a conservative stamp on the court that could last well into the next century. Already, the nine-member court has six conservatives, who have shown an increasing willingness to reverse past liberal rulings.

Marshall, in a parting shot Thursday, warned that “scores of established constitutional liberties are now ripe for reconsideration.”

In a statement, Bush praised the retiring jurist for his “extraordinary and distinguished service to his country as a pioneering civil rights lawyer, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals . . . and in his tenure on the Supreme Court. His career is an inspiring example for all Americans.”

Bush promised “to nominate a successor very soon.” Marshall said his resignation would become effective when his successor is confirmed.

The vacancy presents a sensitive issue for the White House, which has been battling Democrats over civil rights and “quota” hiring of minorities.

Should Bush appoint a black judge to fill Marshall’s seat at the risk of being accused of using a form of quota himself? Or should he appoint another conservative, white judge at the risk of further angering blacks and other minorities?

Administration sources said Bush may take a third course by choosing the first Latino for the high court. Two names immediately mentioned were U.S. District Judge Ricardo H. Hinojosa of Texas, whom Bush knows and likes, sources said, and U.S. Appeals Court Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez of Los Angeles.

Fernandez was rumored to be a candidate for the last vacancy on the high court. Legal observers, however, said the odds of a judge from the Western states being appointed is not high because the court already has three members from the region.

But his work on the San Bernardino County Superior Court bench, the U.S. District Court and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has earned him the reputation of being a “scholarly workaholic.” Attorneys give him high marks for his meticulous research and his ability to sort through the issues in complex cases.

Also mentioned as possible successors to Marshall were Judge Clarence Thomas, a black conservative on the U.S. Appeals Court in Washington, and Amalya L. Kearse, a Democratic appointee who sits on the federal appeals court in New York.

Another prospect is U.S. Appeals Court Judge Edith H. Jones of Houston, a conservative who was the runner-up last year when Bush named New Hampshire jurist David H. Souter to the bench, his only high court appointment so far. Also, Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr remains a favorite of the Administration.

Democrats on Capitol Hill warned they would contest Bush’s choice if, in the words of Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) he picks “another right-wing ideologue like Robert Bork” (whose appointment by the Ronald Reagan Administration was blocked by the Senate) or “another Stealth candidate like David Souter.”

Marshall’s advancing age and accompanying physical ailments had prompted speculation in recent years about how long he would stay on the bench, but he had given no hint his retirement decision was near as the court wrapped up its latest term with a series of rulings Thursday morning.

During the court’s final session, he sat grimly as his conservative colleagues read decisions cutting back on rights for criminal defendants. Although both his wife and retired Justice William J. Brennan made a rare appearance in the courtroom, nothing was said of Marshall’s pending retirement. But within three hours, the White House announced his intention to quit.

From both ends of the political spectrum, reaction to Marshall’s resignation was swift.

Democratic Party Chairman Ron Brown called the justice’s departure “truly a loss for all America and a tragedy for this country. His resignation leaves a tremendous void that George Bush will never understand.”

But Richard A. Viguerie, chairman of the United Conservatives of America, proclaimed “Hallelujuh” upon hearing the news. He said Marshall’s resignation gives Bush “an opportunity to remake the American judiciary and change the face of this country,” Viguerie said.

Marshall’s loss to the court is both practical and symbolic.

Alone among his colleagues, Marshall spent years in courtrooms as a lawyer, trying to save his clients from a trip to the gallows or arguing for black civil rights plaintiffs before all-white Southern juries. Where the other justices talk of the law in abstract and theoretical terms, Marshall brought them back to practical reality.

Recently, for example, a Florida prosecutor argued that a bus passenger whose bags contained cocaine had freely consented to have the police search them. Marshall was skeptical.

“Why is it that all these drug dealers say, ‘Yeah, search my bags.’ Do we only get the stupid drug dealers here?” he asked. The prosecutor had no reply.

Marshall did little if any writing for the court in recent years. Suffering from failing eyesight and a shortness of breath, he found it difficult to work at his desk for long periods.

Like his nemesis, former President Reagan, Marshall kept his eye on the big picture and delegated the details to his young law clerks. Marshall knew the principles he wanted to defend and decided how he wanted to vote in each case, but rarely bothered with the legal intricacies.

He took the side of the individual in battles with the government. He opposed the death penalty in every instance. He pushed for greater civil rights for blacks, women and minorities. He defended free speech, the free press and the separation of church and state. Along with Justice Brennan, he could be counted on to take the side of the underdog. And both Brennan and Marshall voted consistently in favor of a woman’s right to choose abortion.

Brennan was forced by ill health to retire last summer, and now Marshall has joined him. As a result, only two solid supporters of abortion rights remain on the court.

But Marshall’s significance went beyond a single issue or his voting pattern on the court. Having grown up in a segregated Baltimore neighborhood in the 1920s, he went on to become a fierce foe of segregation and one of the nation’s greatest courtroom lawyers.

Where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought the civil rights battle in the streets, Marshall fought it in the courts. And one could probably not have succeeded without the other.

Because of the enormous impact of his success, many experts rank Marshall as the most important lawyer of the 20th Century. As legal director for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, he led the long legal fight to end official segregation, which culminated in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.

“Whether you agree with his opinions or not, he is one of the greatest Americans our legal system has ever produced. He dismantled the American apartheid,” said University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein, a former Marshall clerk.

“More than any other legal mind of the 20th Century, he brought about a nonviolent revolution under the rule of law in America,” said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga), who marched for civil rights throughout the South.

“It’s a sad day for America, a sad day for the poor and a sad day for liberty,” said Rep. Edolphus (Ed) Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Marshall had served as a federal appeals court judge and U.S. solicitor general when President Lyndon B. Johnon announced on June 13, 1967, that he was nominating him to the Supreme Court. As the first black justice, his nomination drew praise--and, from Southern conservatives--sharp criticism. He joined a court that was at its liberal zenith.

What no one foresaw was that Marshall would be the last Democratic appointee to the high court for an entire generation.

Since then, nine seats have become vacant on the Supreme Court and all of them have been filled by Republican presidents.

Only Justice Byron R. White, 74, remains from the so-called Warren Court of the 1960s, named for then-Chief Justice Earl Warren and notable for its series of sweeping liberal decisions. And unlike Marshall, White has voted steadily with the conservative majority.

Throughout his career on the court, Marshall has watched as the once-dominant liberal bloc was whittled away by death and retirements. Despite a multitude of illnesses, he pledged to hold on to his seat as long as possible.

“I was nominated for a life term, and I intend to serve it,” he often said.

Marshall never played the role of the graying prophet or the wise old man. He remained sarcastic and blunt. He shocked young clerks with ribald stories and never let his fellow justices forget where he came from.

In 1987, former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger tried to enlist the nine justices to travel with him to Philadelphia for a ceremony commemorating the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution. Though reluctant, they were ready to go. But Marshall insisted that he would go only if the ceremony was historically authentic.

“I’ll wear the knee breeches and serve the coffee,” he said. The trip was canceled.

Marshall in particular liked to rattle the pompous Burger. “What’s shakin’, chief baby?,” he once asked him.

His clashes with Burger revealed not only differing personalities, but a fundamental difference of opinion. Where Burger and many conservatives said the court should look to the “original intent” of the Constitution of 1787, Marshall said he saw no inspired wisdom in an era in which the majority of Americans--women and blacks--were excluded from all political power.

The Constitution was “defective from the start,” Marshall said in 1987. “The true miracle was not the birth of the Constitution, but its life.”

Behind the closed doors of the court’s conference room, Marshall swayed his colleagues, not by sophisticated legal arguments, but by real life stories. Again, like Reagan, he had a story for every occasion. Most came from his long years traveling in the Deep South representing poor, black clients before white judges and white juries.

In such circumstances, a legal victory for him was life in prison for his client, he often said.

“His presence around the table made a difference because of who he was and where he had come from,” commented Georgetown University law professor Mark Tushnet, who is completing a biography of Marshall.

In January, five of his colleagues made that same point at a Howard University Law School ceremony honoring Marshall. To the surprise of the faculty and students, the justices--White, Sandra Day O’Connor, Harry A. Blackmun, Anthony M. Kennedy and Souter--showed up unannounced for the unveiling of a bust of Marshall.

Called to the podium, White and Kennedy said they would never forget the stories Marshall told. O’Connor called him a “living legend;” Souter dubbed him “a prophet of our times.”

Ever the wit, Marshall saw an opportunity in the gathering. “We have enough justices here to decide a case,” he told the law students.

Washington Bureau Chief Jack Nelson and staff writer Sam Fulwood III contributed to this story.